Top pro-Taliban cleric killed in Karachi

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A policeman walks past a burning car, as protests erupt in Karachi.Photo:Reuters

A senior pro-Taliban cleric in Pakistan was today gunned down by unknown assailants outside his mosque in the southern city of Karachi, and his death sparked widespread protests, police and hospital sources said.

Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, who had called for a jihad, or holy war, against the United States after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was wounded along with his son, a relative, a bodyguard and a driver, police said.

A police official had initially said the cleric's companions included his three sons, but clarified the relationships later.

''He has expired,'' a hospital source said.

''We have not yet announced it because there is a huge mob outside and we are worried about a law and order situation.''

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack or whether it was a sectarian killing.

A witness told Reuters that at least four men opened fire as Shamzai, one of the country's most revered Sunni clerics, headed for his seminary from his nearby home.

The private Geo television channel said the attackers made their escape by car and motorcycle.

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Small groups of Islamic militants and Shamzai's followers came out on the streets to protest, pelting vehicles with stones and burning tyres.

Angry protesters set fire to a police station, torching two parked vehicles and partly damaging the building, police said.

Shamzai belonged to the hardline Deobandi school of Islamic thought, which has provided thousands of fighters to the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Several Pakistani Islamic militant groups considered him as their spiritual leader.

His seminary, known as Banuri Town, taught many students who later became important members of the Taliban regime in Kabul.

Shamzai led a delegation of Pakistani clerics and intelligence officials to the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar with a secret message from the government soon after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

At the time, militant sources had said Shamzai held a separate meeting with Omar to assure him of the support of Pakistani clerics.

The Taliban, accused of harbouring Saudi-born Osama bin Lader and his shadowy al-Qaeda network, were ousted from power by the US-led attack in late 2001.